Our STP is called Our Healthier South East London. It has evolved from a commissioner-led strategy – established in 2013 - into a partnership between local commissioners and providers, working with local authorities, patients and the public.The STP is not a blueprint for the next five years: it is a series of plans for different clinical and management areas that are at different stages of development.The STP (full version and summary) was published on 4 November 2016 and was one of the first in the country to be made public.

Have local people been involved?

The models of care developed through Our Healthier South East London are the product of several years of partnership working between clinicians, commissioners, council social care leads, local hospitals, and have been informed by extensive engagement with local communities, patients and the public.

Read about how the public and patients have been involved during 2018 and 2019 here.

OHSEL news

Local Care Partnerships in south east London

Doctors and nurses will be able to reduce unnecessary patient tests and improve safety through better communication between hospitals, GPs and social care. New partnerships will be introduced giving health and care staff better and faster access to vital information about the person in their care, so they can determine the right action as quickly as possible, whether that is urgent tests or a referral to a specialist. At the moment, in many local areas GPs and other care professionals are often not able to access crucial patient information quickly if it is held in another part of the health service. They sometimes have to rely on arranging meetings, telephone calls, post or fax instead. In recent years a number of projects, such as the Local Care Record and ConnectCare, have done this successfully. In many cases this is supporting integrated health and social care teams who are working together.

NHS England has announced that three areas, covering 14 million people, have been chosen to become 'Local Health and Care Record Exemplars' (LHCRE), including One London. South east London played a crucial role in the successful One London bid and now expect to play a core role in its implementation. Each new partnership will receive up to £7.5 million (£1.5m for South East London) over two years to put in place an electronic shared local health and care record that makes the relevant information about people instantly available to everyone involved in their care and support. Each Local Health and Care Record Exemplar will work on a larger scale than existing local projects, providing healthcare staff who need it access to the information they need for people's individual care. Each LHCRE is made up of either one or multiple Sustainability Transformation Partnerships (STPs).

The new partnerships will also work to better understand demand for our services and to plan effectively for future demand.

The Government will also introduce a new national data opt-out as of 25 May, which will offer people a choice on how their identifiable information is used for research and planning purposes. The NHS has a long history of scientific breakthroughs and providing patient's with access to leading research trials and the latest treatments. In the future the NHS and Government will seek to establish Digital Innovation Hubs to provide a safe, controlled and secure environment for research that can bring patients benefits from scientific breakthroughs much faster.

Why change things?

a growing and aging population living with long term conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and mental illness

quality of care and outcomes of treatment differs depending on when and where people access services

patient experience differs and some people find it difficult to get an appointment or feel they do not have enough information about their condition

NHS funding increases in line with inflation but the costs of providing care are rising much faster – which, at the moment, could mean an overspend for south east London of around £1bn by 2021 if we were to do nothing.

Our plan is designed to make sure services are high quality, more joined-up and available closer to home. We can also reduce costs and help manage demand by working together rather than each organisation doing this alone.

What does the plan mean for local people?

Better community based care including: extra £7.5 million a year to ensure that people in south east London can book a GP at a time that suits them – including more evening and weekend slots.

Community based
care film

​Find out more

To find out more about Our Healthier South East London, to read the case for change, or to discover events to participate in, and other ways to contribute your views, visit the programme website, www.ourhealthiersel.nhs.uk